An ISIS defector just revealed how the group could start to fracture

Disputes between different groups of foreign fighters could
undermine ISIS, according to a defector from the group who
was interviewed
by The Daily Beast.

The ISIS defector, who goes by the pseudonym Abu Khaled,
spoke with Michael Weiss at length in Istanbul, Turkey, about
ISIS and its internal operations.

According to Abu Khaled, although ISIS relies upon foreign
fighters, its leaders still fear that those militants might not
be entirely loyal and are concerned that ISIS could fracture
along national or ethnic lines.

Previously, Khaled
told Weiss, foreign fighters would be organized into
battalions based upon their origin for ease of communication
and control. But this practice has been halted following the
dissolution of a 750-member-strong Libyan brigade, known as
al-Battar, that was deemed to be insufficiently loyal to ISIS's
overall hierarchy.

"Its men, ISIS found, were more loyal to their emir than they
were to the organization," Weiss
writes. "So al-Battar was disbanded."

This distrust of foreign fighters has now led ISIS to create
battalions with fighters of mixed origin, even when some of
those fighters aren't Arabic speakers.

Abu Khaled told Weiss that ISIS officials in Raqqa, Syria, denied
his request to form a French-speaking battalion due to the
earlier experience with the Libyans.

"They told me, 'We had a problem before with the Libyans. We
don't want the French in one katiba [battalion],'"
Abu Khaled
said.

Reuters

Abu Khaled's description meshes with earlier reporting that
battlefield setbacks have exposed fissures within the group.
Chechen and Uzbek militants clashed after ISIS failed to take the
strategic border city of Kobane in January, for example, with
each blaming the other for the siege's failure, The
Telegraph
reports.

Two senior ISIS officials were apparently killed during the
infighting.

Tensions are also reportedly emerging between ISIS foreign
fighters and local Syrians. These divisions undermine a key
propaganda concept within ISIS — namely, the unity of all
practicing Muslims within its "caliphate."

Foreigners in the organization can earn twice as much pay as
local fighters. Foreign fighters also receive better living
accommodations in ISIS-controlled cities and are less frequently
deployed to the frontline than their Syrian or Iraqi
counterparts, The Wall Street Journal
reports.

"We're seeing basically a failure of the central tenet of ISIS
ideology, which is to unify people of different origins under the
caliphate," Lina Khatib, director of the Carnegie Middle East
Center in Beirut,
told The Washington Post in March. "This is not working on
the ground. It is making them less effective in governing and
less effective in military operations."

AP
Photo/Bram Janssen

Allegedly preferential treatment for foreign fighters has bred
resentment within ISIS, as Syrians feel that they take a
larger share of the group's military risk. The disparity has also
sparked violence between the groups within ISIS. Foreign fighters
and Syrian militants waged a shootout in the town of Abu Kamal on
the Iraqi border following an order that deployed the Syrians to
the Iraqi front line in March, The Post reports.

When disputes arise within ISIS, Abu Khaled
told Weiss, they escalate quickly — and often violently. In
one case, Abu Khaled described the extreme lengths an ISIS
leader in Raqqa went to in order to protect himself from
jihadists who were purportedly under his control.

"I was in Raqqa once, and there was five or six Chechens. They
were mad about something. So they came to see the emir of Raqqa,"
Abu Khaled
said. "He was so afraid, he ordered ISIS to deploy snipers to
the roofs of buildings. He thought the Chechens would attack. The
snipers stayed there for two hours."

ISIS's ground-level setbacks in Syria and Iraq and failure to
take significant additional territory are likely to further
tensions among the various groups fighting under the terrorist
organization's umbrella.

French jets have
pounded ISIS positions in its de facto capital of Raqqa, the
Syrian military
broke a year-long ISIS siege of an airbase outside Aleppo,
and US-backed Kurdish forces just retook
Sinjar, Iraq, from ISIS, cutting off a supply route for the
militants stretching between Iraq and Syria.

Such losses may eventually add to the discontent within the
organization. But in the near term, ISIS may continue to
plan major attacks around the world in an attempt to
distract supporters from its failures within the
"caliphate's" borders.